Stepping in to take the pressure off Blackpool GPs

At the height of the pandemic up to 500 people a week were being contacted by the community run service funded by the National Lottery.

It enables GPs to refer patients who need more than just a prescription for pills to cure their problems, freeing up doctors to focus on a person’s physical medical needs.

Now an NHS study is to be carried out by UCLAN to measure the impact of the scheme on people’s lives, and the savings it delivers to the NHS.

Social prescribing enables people to share problems such as money worries and loneliness which may affect their health with specialist members of staff.

South Shore based community interest company Social Enterprise Solutions runs the service with GP surgeries including members of the South Shore Primary Care Network such as Arnold Medical Centre.

Alistair Clarke, chairman of Social Enterprise Solutions, said: “A good chunk of people go to their doctor with a lot of problems, such as housing or money related issues, which they can’t deal with.

“We have seven link workers whose role is to call up the patients, give them support and put them in touch with the services which can help them.

“We also try and build in resilience so they feel empowered to be able to sort things out themselves, as confidence is a big issue people struggle with.”

Support can include helping some of the 15 to 20 per cent of people in Blackpool who do not have online access, which creates a barrier to tasks such as claiming benefits.

Alistair says this kind of ‘knowledge isolation’ also affects people when it comes to things like getting the best mortgage, using comparison websites etc.

On top of this the pandemic has left many people lonely, with some he says “who haven’t been out for a year and are still scared of Covid.”

This has led to a surge in mental health illnesses and the service has been able to provide free counselling.

Since April 2020 the work has been funded through a £198,000 Lottery grant, but that comes to an end next year.

It is hoped the UCLAN study will provide empirical data to prove social prescribing takes enough of a burden off the NHS to merit further funding.

Tony Carr, managing director of Social Enterprise Solutions, says: “If someone is suffering from acute anxiety, they can be prescribed pills but that doesn’t get to the root cause.

“We are able to offer people instant mental health support. We supplement what the NHS can do, but do it quickly which is highly effective.

“The service goes much deeper than just befriending, as we are handling the very toughest cases.

“Is it possible to work out what it saves the NHS in hospital admissions, medication and ambulance call outs?”

Many of those who have received help have been at the very brink of despair, and often their GP is the only person they can turn to.

But under-pressure GPs are starved of time – which is why the social prescribing service steps in.

It literally stabilises lives, allowing doctors to then concentrate on their patients’ physical health.

GPs who attended a recent event at the Winter Gardens to promote the service, said it was making a huge difference to their patients’ lives.

Dr Dan Bennett, of the South Shore Primary Care Centre, said: “I think we have known for a long time there is not a medical solution for everything out there.

“There are a lot of people who are lonely, a lot of people in need of help and advice and we’re not always able to do that as health care professionals.

“Having social prescribing has made a real difference to a lot of our patients over the last two years, particularly during Covid. Five hundred phone calls a week from the social prescribers has been immense.”

Social prescribing is part of a national initiative, with Social Prescribing Day taking place on March 10.

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